


Phobia

by Elivra



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Fear, Gen, Graphic Description, Minor Character Death, Pre-Canon, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-08 11:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14104233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elivra/pseuds/Elivra
Summary: Hange Zoë doesn't return from her first Expedition outside the Walls.Not really.Rated for graphic depictions of death. As you will, in canon SnK.





	Phobia

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuse for this. I just rewatched the first episode of season 2, and that image of Hange sitting right on the edge of the Wall saying "Talk about scary..." really struck me.
> 
> Tried to be as vague as possible with her back story (because we don't have it yet!!!!)
> 
> Happy reading!

_ I wish I was dead. _

She has never felt like this. Never has fear and despair clamped down on her spine so heavily that she wants to end it all. A year ago, she would have scoffed at herself for harbouring such thoughts. A day ago, she would have laughed at herself.

But today, she finds herself irreversibly transformed, as if the brash, excited girl she thought she knew doesn't exist anymore. She doesn't. She knows that girl is now gone, that girl ran away somewhere beyond the walls, in the realm of monsters. All that is left now is a empty husk of pain and angst and  _ fear _ . So much fear.

She skims through memories as if they are not her own. She remembers the dismay she felt when she learnt that the one skill she would rather not learn, was the one skill that was absolutely essential for her posting. For a few days she had tried suggesting alternatives to her trainers, but even she saw the ridiculousness of her proposal. She could not hope to do what she had planned to do, could not hope to achieve anything without strapping herself into that harness. And so she did.

She managed to blaze through her training, characteristically gritting her teeth and slogging through every obstacle, every misstep and every weakness. When she made it to the top ten and people were surprised she hadn't changed her mind she simply laughed. Did they really think she would turn away after everything she had put herself through, all the work she had done?

She had done  _ nothing _ .

She had been completely unprepared, completely useless, when her time finally came. It took every fibre of her being to stay upright on that tree, staring down into the bloody maws. Staring down into hell.

_ I wish I was dead. _

“Hey. Squad Leader Shadis was asking for you.”

The person, she's not sure who, has to repeat what they said before she processes their words. Even then, she feels lethargic. Untethered. Lost, suspended, trapped in the screaming hell she never expected, never could've prepared for.

She finds him outside the dinner hall and he simply commands her to follow him. She does, blank and incurious like a sleeping child. They approach the Wall and only a slight twinge in her gut filters through her apathy. He leads her into a lift and she follows, silently. He says nothing and neither does she. Her eyes are fixed on the smooth surface of the Wall as if it is the most fascinating thing she has ever seen.

They disembark right on top and the stiff breeze elicitates a shiver from her, her strongest reaction to anything yet.

“Now. Tell me what happened.”

She blinks twice before the words make sense to her. She turns to her Squad Leader, a hint of a frown between her brows.

“Sir?”

“Your report, Cadet Zoë, was one of the most emotional ones I have read yet.”

She blinks again, her frown deepens. “I… wrote nothing.”

“Exactly.” To her horror, he slips out a sheaf of papers from his jacket pocket. She recognises her own impatient scrawl all over them.

The Squad Leader squints in the darkness. “Let's see… Ah, yes. 'Titan numbers increased exponentially. At last count, there were an approximate dozen at the base of the trees. Cadet can confirm four deaths: three consumed, one crushed. Retreat made possible for her when the Titans were cleared from the area by Squad Metzger.’”

There is a long pause. She feels obligated to say, “It's the truth.”

“I don't doubt it.”

“Then what is the problem?” Her voice is edged with something she doesn't recognise anymore. Something the girl who ran away would have been familiar with.

“There is no problem.” He cards a hand through his rapidly thinning hair, as though he is searching for the right words. “I would like to hear an exact account from you.”

“I wrote everything down.”

“Now  _ that _ , I think, is a lie.”

She freezes to a stop, and he stops next to her.

“Tell me what happened.”

She stares at him, unseeing. The Wall, the Squad Leader with his tired eyes, they are all a mirage, a dream. What is real, is the hell of screams and pain and large teeth and blood. So much blood.

“Zoë.”

She blinks rapidly yet again, fighting to focus on him through the dull red haze.

“Tell me what happened.”

She focuses on his eyes, hard, firm, unyielding. The eyes of a man so determined that there are already whispers of him being the next Commander.

“Tell me,” he commands her, and she finally complies.

“I froze. I was on the trees and I just -froze.” She adjusts her glasses in a mockery of the way she used to, back when she was a foolish, ambitious girl. “Everyone is afraid of something or the other. The actual range of fears across humanity is astonishingly large and varied and extremely fascinating. There has been an effort lately to name and classify these fears, in order to better recognise them and perhaps eradicate them. I have known mine for a while.”

Squad Leader Shadis nods. “Heights.”

“Heights,” she agrees, hysteria rising in her. It _was_ funny, it was downright hilarious that being in the Survey Corps meant that she had to learn to use the 3DMG. She had spent all her years in training clamping down on it, forcing herself to push the fear to the dimmest corner of her mind, while she focused on blades and hooks and trajectories. It worked surprisingly well. Her lowest score was in gear maneuvering, but she didn't care. She had done it, she had graduated, she had joined the Survey Corps and she could begin her Titan studies in earnest.

Then she went out on her first Expedition, and the shameful secret she had locked in the cage of her mind had broken loose, frozen her limbs and made cold sweat pour down the back of her neck, made her nearly dizzy with the thought of being alive in that hell hole. The girl called Hange Zoë ran away, and the long-chained, long-denied fear took charge instead, making her watch her comrades scream and die and letting her do little else.

The Squad Leader says nothing for a while, and she wallows silently in her shame. They near the soldier on guard duty for the night, and the Squad Leader halts abruptly.

“Change of orders. You're being relieved,” he tells the Garrison man curtly, who leaves in a hurry as though he is afraid they might change their mind.

“You get guard duty atop Wall Maria tonight,” the Squad Leader says without preamble.

Another spark flares in her chest. “Sir, you can't-”

“It is an order, Zoë. I'll see you in the morning.” Before she can say another word, he is striding away, back to the lift -but no, the previous guard is already using the lift. She takes one step towards him, and he takes one step right off the Wall.

Her breath catches in her chest, strangling her, and she scrambles forward to see, but she needn't have bothered. She hears the hiss of his gear, watches him swing into the darkness until she can see him no more. Then, she realises she is right on the edge of the Wall and she stumbles backwards with a half-cry for no one to hear, and lands hard on her backside. Pain shoots up through her and it is as if something has stirred in her, shaking the heavy hold of her apathy off her. She takes a deep breath, clear for the first time in hours and then-

A small giggle bursts through her lips. Then the last of her inhibitions melt away, and she laughs. And laughs and laughs and laughs. And screams and howls and sobs and the tears are running down her face so fast she stops trying to rub them off. In the end she is sobbing, just sobbing, her glasses clutched tight in her hands, her hands pressing painfully at her chest.

Carlos had been the first to die. He had been in her training batch, and so had Pippa, who got her head bitten off. Luna had gone next and Murdock had been trampled before he could even get close. She knew all their names, she had made sure to know all their names, out of a sense of camaraderie. But it hadn't been enough. She had found out about Pippa's little sisters, and Murdock's screaming fiancée only after they had returned. It wasn't enough, it was never enough.

An acute sense of duty, more than anything else, makes her push herself to her feet, makes her slip her glasses back over bleary eyes, makes her begin a shaky patrol up and down the wall. An errant giggle -or a whimper, she can't tell -escapes her every now and then. When the outbursts finally stop, she pauses at the edge of the Wall, hesitates, and steps closer.

She is standing less than a foot away from the edge and the town of Shiganshina glows vague and dim from beneath her. Other than the meagre stars, it is the only source of light in the sea of darkness that is everywhere around her. That doesn't bother her, not really. Darkness is something curious, something to be explored. Heights break necks and turn powerful men into cripples.

A strong shudder passes through her again and she takes another slight step forward. Six inches from the edge now, she halts, swaying and shivering. After a long moment, she steps back.

She keeps doing this during the night, edging closer and closer to the harsh line that delineates the end of the world from the rest of humanity. She takes turns on either side, looking over Shiganshina when she feels another sob twisting in her chest, looking over the uncharted expanse of hell on the other side when she feels particularly strong.

Dawn creeps up before she knows it. There is no telltale glint of yellow light over the distant horizon, no clouds turning pale dusted golds and pinks. Instead, the uniform slab of the sky simply lightens -it fades from the inkiest black to a pale, heavy blue, to the dull grey of a new day.

It finds her standing right on the edge of the Wall, Shiganshina to her back, the tips of her boots jutting into thin air by an inch. She is frozen stiff, every muscle tightly corded and in control. One stumble would cause her to pitch over.

A Titan stands far, far below her, a five metre class, probably, running its hands aimlessly on the smooth Wall. She watches its hair turn pale even as the sky does, until the murky blonde of its hair is apparent even from that distance. It reminds her of Luna.

The Titan looks up and lets out a deep, low moan that barely floats up to her. She remembers Luna flitting from tree to tree, a veteran in glorious motion, but still too painfully mortal. She remembers the frenzy with which the monsters tore at her, remembers how they seemed to ignore Murdock until he began to scream and wave his swords. She remembers how Murdock himself was so interesting to them that they had missed old Metzger and his squad approach them from their flank-

_ Huh _ .

She blinks rapidly. The Titan below her moans again and even from that distance, she can tell the moan is  _ petulant _ . Another giggle rises in her chest, and she realises with sudden clarity that that is just what it is -a giggle, nothing more.

With a snort, she steps away and turns around. The lift is already moving, and the person aboard steps up on the Wall soon enough. “Hange Zoë, Survey Corps, Squad Shadis.” She introduces herself and gives him her empty verbal report, officially handing over her shift. Then she marches past the lift and stands again at the edge of the Wall, looking down on Shiganshina, at the people already starting to mill about like ants, busy and unconcerned by the screaming hell just past their Wall.

The soles of her feet tingle, her heart thuds erratically. The ground is so,  _ so _ far away.

Then, she takes a deep breath and steps right off.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I myself have acrophobia (fear of heights) to an extent, but I've never actually gotten vertigo or fainted because of heights, as I've heard some people do. I hope this depiction is in no way offending to those people who do struggle heavily with this anxiety disorder.
> 
> Seriously, Hange's insane nonchalance when it comes to heights has always astounded me. She doesn't jump off precipices, just steps off them, all casual like, like, DAMN. I like to think that she had to work hard to get to that level of comfort, because I can see her doing just that. We've never been told exactly how long Hange has been in the Corps, but it is at least a decade, maybe more. Enough time for her to face her fears, don't you think?
> 
> Well, I'll return to my many WIPs now. Thanks for reading and let me know what you think of it!


End file.
